2003 Cadence Readers' Poll

[Captain Hate]

Just over a month from now to submit these suckers. Please, let's not start the thread this year by bitching about Rusch's rules!! Maybe we should discuss if we're gonna stuff the ballot box for any faves; even though nothing like that was coordinated last year, it was still pretty hilarious how Hands of Caravaggio received the highest rating by all but one of the people submitting lists. Since it was barely reviewed in Hodgepodge & Shorties, I'll bet a significant percentage of readers didn't know jack about it.

[Gary Sisco]

I've let my sub lapse. You all will have to soldier on without me this year.

[AllenMichie]

The same thing can happen in the Down Beat reader's poll, too. A few years ago Chris Vadala (reed player for Chuck Mangione) mysteriously appeared in many of the categories: best sax, best sax TDWR, best composer, etc., and each time he "coincidentally" had the exact same number of votes. Guess he had a pretty good year, even though I must have been out of it and missed his no-doubt essential new release that made him the household name he remains to this day. :-)

Personally, I'm still pissed that Scott Joplin isn't in the Down Beat hall of fame. We have such short attention spans!

[frankiepop]

well, he isnt really jazz.

[Gary Sisco]

You stole my line, F.

Clearly, there's a lot of organized ballot stuffing. How else can one seriously attempt to explain the votes that the Four Freshmen continuously get in DB? I've been around the jazz world for a long time, and I've never once, not even once, heard their name come up in conversation with listeners or with any of the cats, and yet they score higher on the HOF than almost all jazz musicians. That's simply impossible without an organized effort on their fans' parts.

[Nate Dorward]

No he isn't jazz, but he still should be in there. A lot of the groundwork of jazz is laid down in ragtime, not least its popularity.

[Nate Dorward]

Incidentally, this being the first year I've submitted to Cadence as a contributor to the mag rather than as a reader, I was caught out by the more arbitrary criteria laid down for contributors: their lists must be constructed only from discs reviewed from Nov.02-Dec.03 in their pages. This means for instance that no reviewer's top-ten can list Duos for Doris or the Jimmy Lyons set, e.g.; & no reissues from Columbia, Blue Note or Verve qualify for the top-ten reissues.

So in a complementary spirit of perversity my top-ten list for Cadence is "alternate takes": stuff that didn't make my Coda list, with no overlap at all. So, if anyone cares, & happens to subscribe to both journals, they can piece together my top-twenty from the two magazines' January issues. & a few discs slipped between the cracks nonetheless because of the arbitrary rules. I didn't even bother to put together a list of reissues as it seemed to me hopeless given that virtually any reissue I'd heard was debarred from inclusion--only the Classics & Atavistic series get regularly reviewed in Cadence's resissues pages. The one disc that would have been definitely on such a list is Snurdy McGurdy & Her Dancing Shoes by Roscoe Mitchell. Sorry, Chuck...!

Duos for Doris was a special case. I'd had a fairly complex & equivocal response to the disc (for which see the long review I ended up writing for the Squid's Ear). For me it'd go into such a list not because it's necessarily a disc of enormous personal significance--frankly I have barely listened to it again since I turned in copy--but because it provided a lot to chew on. Sometimes discs are "important", whatever ranking they have in one's personal jukebox. But for Coda Stuart Broomer specifically asks that lists be not of "important" discs but simply those you've most enjoyed, so that's what I handed in; I also felt that Duos for Doris would undoubtedly already get tons of props from others, & didn't want to simply pile on the kudos to a disc already sporting many more passionate & articulate champions. I would have liked, though, to include it in the Cadence list, as that would have been a more interesting inclusion in that context (in a journal oriented to more orthodox traditions of free jazz & free improv). But as I said, it got disqualified.

Anyway, this is all maybe of minimal interest to JC folks but since none of these polls actually allows critics to explain their reasoning I wanted to say something on the record outside the magazines' pages.

[Captain Hate]

This is like the sound of one hand clapping (I hate the points crap but...):

Current Releases
3 Stefano Battaglia - Atem Splasc(h)
3 Parker/Wachsmann/Hauta-Aho - The Needles Leo
2 Xmarsx Atavistic
2 Adam Lane - Fo(u)r Being(s) CIMP
3 Freedom of the City 2002 Small Groups Emanem
3 Exploding Customer - Live at Glenn Miller Cafe Ayler
2 Markus Eichenberger - Domino Concept for Orchestra Emanem
3 Parker/McPhee - Chicago Tenor Duets Okka
2 Luescher/Olshausen/Su - Dear C: The Music of Carla Bley Altrisuoni
2 Matt Wilson - Humidity Palmetto

Reissues
5 Alexander Von Schlippenbach - Pakistani Pomade Atavistic
5 Ibrahim/Roach - Streams of Consciousness Piadrum
5 Roscoe Mitchell - Snurdy McGurdy and her Dancing Shoes Nessa
5 Evan Parker - Six of One Psi
5 Vandermark 5 - Free Jazz Classics Atavistic

[Frisco]

I'll skip the points thing. Here's the discs that I submitted:
NEW:
Norton/Leandre/Ulrich - Ocean of Earth - Barking Hoop
Rob Brown Trio - Round the Bend - Bleu Regard
Jimmy Lyons - The Box Set - Ayler
Carter/Cook/Kowald/Lamaster - Principle Hope - Sublingual
Ursel Schlict/Steve Swell - Poets of the Now - CIMP
Butcher/Lonberg-Holm/Zerang - Tincture - Musica Genera
Bauer/Kowald/Sommer - Between Heaven and Earth - Intakt
Tippett/Tilbury/Riley - Another Part of the Story - Emanem
Whit Dickey Trio Ahxoloxha - Prophet Moon - Riti
REISSUES:
Huey (Sonny) Simmons - Burning Spirits - Contemporary
Alex Von Schlippenbach - The Living Music - Atavistic UMS
Dollar Brand - The Journey - Downtown Sound
Roscoe Mitchell - Snurdy McGurdy.. - Sackville
Fortune/Harper/Workman.. - Great Friends - Evidence
Anthony Braxton - Coventry Concert - Leo
Alex Von Schlippenbach - Pakistani Pomade - Atavistic UMS

[Frisco]

Just heard (haven't seen it yet) the results of the 2003 Cadence Readers Poll. I'm told that Nine of the Twenty CDs that topped the poll are CIMPs. Somehow I find that incredible and puzzling. Not that there wasn't some nice stuff recorded, but 9 out of 20?

[Derek Taylor]

Wow! Haven’t seen it yet either, but that does sound like an inordinately high ratio. If I’d had a Top 50 to work with four or five CIMPs would have easily made the cut for me. But with only 20 slots, there’s no way.

Hey Pat, are you gonna hit Athens in April?

[Frisco]

Originally posted by Derek Taylor

Hey Pat, are you gonna hit Athens in April?

I'm seriously thinking about it. But with a Cecil Taylor Big Band in March and Vision Fest in May, it may be tough to make all three.

[Frisco]

Originally posted by Frisco
Just heard (haven't seen it yet) the results of the 2003 Cadence Readers Poll. I'm told that Nine of the Twenty CDs that topped the poll are CIMPs. Somehow I find that incredible and puzzling. Not that there wasn't some nice stuff recorded, but 9 out of 20?

OK, now I have to quote my own misinformation. I just received the mag and see 23 cds listed on the readers poll. Of those, 6 are CIMPS and 3 are CJRs. So 9 of 23 are Cadence issues. I voted for the Uesel Schlicht-Steve Swell 4tet, "Poets of the Now". If I voted again today, I'd add Dunmall-Rogers-Norton, "Rylickolum: For Your Pleasure. Neither of those made the list of 9.

[Nate Dorward]

Hm, they do seem to be preaching to the converted, don't they.....?



There are several CIMP releases that deserve to be on the list (have only heard two recent CJRs & I wouldn't include either, though both were OK)....but that's still a pretty wonky balance.

(Correction--a 3rd CJR I forgot about, the Noah Rosen--that one's quite good, & I expect it's one of those that made the list?)

[Captain Hate]

Ok, Nate and Derek; how come you didn't have lists in the January issue??

[Derek Taylor]

Good question, Cap’n. I’m trying to get to the bottom of it myself given that I submitted ones for both new releases & reissues well within the deadline parameters. Maybe there’s a pink slip in the mail that I don’t know about?

[Nate Dorward]

Haven't seen the new issue, so that's news to me--I'd submitted a list & had correspondence with Hillary & Bob about it (I had to sub in a few things to make it fit the rules). No idea. I'll drop 'em a line. -- Here's what I submitted in the end. It has no overlap with the ten discs I picked for Coda.

1 Stefano Battaglia, Michele Rabbia, Dominique Pifarély, Vincent Courtois
and Michel Godard, Atem, Splasc(h)
2 Paolo Birro, Live at Siena Jazz, Splasc(h)
3 John Butcher, Invisible Ear, Fringes
4 Markus Eichenberger, Domino Concept for Orchestra, Emanem
5 Hiroaki Katayama, Quatre, StudioWee
6 Adam Lane, Fo(u)r Being(s), CIMP
7 Lê Quan Ninh, Le Ventre Negatif, Meniscus
8 Lisbon Improvisation Players, live_lx meskla, Clean Feed
9 Mal Waldron, One More Time, Sketch
10 Staffan William-Olsson, Pop!, Real Records

[al j]

Originally posted by Derek Taylor
Maybe there’s a pink slip in the mail that I don’t know about?

Let me know if my Dunmall interview shows up stapled to it.

[mke]

Originally posted by Nate Dorward
9 Mal Waldron, One More Time, Sketch

Isn't that 2002?

[Nate Dorward]

mke--yep, it is: see my second (very long) post on this thread & you'll see why. I had to scrap my original list that I submitted because half of it did fall within Cadence's rules for top-tens.

[Frisco]

Originally posted by Derek Taylor
Good question, Cap’n. I’m trying to get to the bottom of it myself given that I submitted ones for both new releases & reissues well within the deadline parameters. Maybe there’s a pink slip in the mail that I don’t know about?

Perhaps you guys didn't put enough CIMPs on the list. I'm kidding. I really admire the work that they've done in getting a lot of otherwise un/under-recorded artists on record.

[Derek Taylor]

Could be, though I did have two Cadence family products represented. Here’s my lists:

New Releases

Joe Morris – AGE OF EVERYTHING (Riti)
Evan Parker/ Joe McPhee – CHICAGO TENOR DUETS (Okkadisk)
Noah Rosen – TRIPS, JOBS & JOURNEYS (Cadence Jazz)
Albert Ayler – THE COPEHAGEN TAPES (Ayler)
Lucian Ban & Alex Harding – SOMETHIN' HOLY (CIMP)
Brotzmann/Parker/Drake – NEVER TOO LATE, BUT ALWAYS TOO EARLY (Eremite)
Ted Brown – PRESERVATION (Steeplechase)
William Parker – SCRAPBOOK (Thirsty Ear)
Skinny Williams & Erwin Helfer – ST. JAMES INFIRMARY (The Sirens)
John Lee Hooker – AT SUGAR HILL, VOL. 2 (Fantasy)

Reissues

Frank Lowe – TRICKS OF THE TRADE (Marge)
John LaPorta – THEME AND VARIATIONS (Fantasy)
Anthony Braxton – SOLO KOLN 1978 (Golden Years of New Jazz)
Gene Ammons – GOODBYE (Prestige)
Mance Lipscomb – TEXAS COUNTRY BLUES (Arhoolie)
Brotzmann/Van Hove/Bennink – BALLS (Atavistic)
Alexander von Schlippenbach – PAKISTANI POMADE (Atavistic)
Evan Parker – SIX OF ONE (Psi)
Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy – LIVE AT DREHER PARIS 1981 (Hatology)
Grachan Moncur – MOSAIC SELECT (Mosaic)

I’m an big admirer of the CIMP cause too. They started 04’ off with a typically intriguing batch that includes albums by Bill Gagliardi, Steve Swell, Ernie Krivda, Odean Pope & Khan Jamal, and Mark Dresser & Ray Anderson. I’m pretty curious to see how Bob’s Patron Plan pans out too (giving financial donors the honor of producing sessions).

[Gary Sisco]

Derek -- More info please on the Ray Anderson/Mark Dresser session?

[Derek Taylor]

Gary, I’ve not heard it yet (hoping a package containing it is enroute from CIMP HQ). But from what I gather it’s a session of stripped-down duo improvisations recorded September of last year. I’m real curious to see how it jibes with stuff put out by Euro pairs like Rutherford & Rogers, and the earlier CIMP project SERIOUS FUN PLUS ONE (Wogram/Bauer/Duval).

[Nate Dorward]

A note from Hilary Ryan today to apologize for the printing mistake--Derek's & my lists will run in the next issue. Anyway, I look forward to seeing it--still hasn't arrived here.